The light bulb was invented in 1879 by Thomas Edison. This invention literally changed the way we lead our life at both home and at work, and contributed substantially to the industrial revolution. However, the original incandescent light bulb design has hardly changed over the years, and modern day bulbs still provide about 10 to 12 lumens per watt with an average life of 1,000 hours. In an incandescent light bulb, the filament represents about 15% of the manufacturing cost. The glass bulb, metal cap, epoxy, solder, raw material and energy used in making the bulb are the remaining 85%. But when this 15% cost filament burns out, people throw away the whole bulb including the good 85%. This creates monumental waste of good raw materials and the energy.
Of late, energy and environmental concerns are causing designers to adopt new lighting technologies such as the Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL). This light bulb has a higher efficiency (lumens/watt) than the incandescent light bulb, however it currently accounts for only 5% of electrical illumination market. The reasons are many. The phosphorus light radiation is unnatural and disliked by many. CFLs contain the environmentally hazardous material mercury and has many health concerns including landfill contamination. A dimmer switch may not be used on most of the CFLs. And finally, the cost of a good CFL is several times more than an incandescent bulb.